I'm afraid my k-pop suggestions will be artists you've already considered? Or are we talking about way back to earlier decades? (The trad pop lady singers of the 80s had a commandinc presence http://youtu.be/gfzCkS-jY20 and then there's the Lee Sora types)

Those are top of my head but I'd like to hear a bit more what sort of 'strong' voice you're after.

I would say there's a lot of commanding "sexual dominance" in the big Japanese electro ladies Koda Kumi and Namie Amuro's voices - but I don't really listen to them so I don't have anything to add besides that. They don't sound like Aretha or Janis, though, they have that particular Japanese sound going. Same (or more so) with Ayumi Hamasaki.

a lot of the videos and suggestions you made, abcfsk, feature artists with "big voices", though i didn't really see anyone pushing for huge, raw, room filling power in the aretha/tina/janis vein. don't really see much indication of independent-minded sexual dominance. the kind of authority i'm talking about requires a quality of aggression, but expressed as "don't fuck with me" attitude rather than hostile bellowing. lack of conventional prettiness would be a plus.

open to just about anything, though. quite liked the "trad lady pop singer" video you posted.

okay. no offense intended. was spurred by my realization that the big, raw "soul" voice on boredoms' pop tatari wasn't a woman (something i'd assumed for years). was a disappointment, and it made me start wondering where those voices were in japanese pop. maybe they just don't exist, i dunno.

You say you don't hear depth of emotion or anguish in Merritt's songs, but that's not what you mean -- what you mean is that you don't hear conventional modern expressions of emotion or anguish, right? You don't hear the vigorous modern singing tricks (scream, grunt, wail) that currently signify "emotion" and "anguish." ...And here we get into the whole Merritt-and-racism debate, because what's the underlying thing here? Merritt's writing kinda deliberately eschews a lot of the things black/soul singing has brought into modern pop.

Mention that not to suggest racism, but perhaps a lack of strong influence from gospel, soul and R&B. Like, maybe the qualities I'm describing are present, but not in the ways I'm used to hearing them.

Was also spurred by occasionally lurking in J/K pop threads and being surprised by just how heavily they skew towards what in the US is labeled "teen pop": cute young people in chastely sexy outfits singing poignant or energetic songs in a manner that doesn't suggest much personal agency. There's a lot of that in the US, UK and Europe, too, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with it, but I was curious about female-fronted Asian pop that reflects other types of feminine ideals. I'm looking for ths, more than anything else, as a counter to the ubiquity, in America, of passive teengirl-as-Japanese-fantasy-object stuff like the video dayo posted in the Tupac hologram thread.

his wife, solo hip-hop artist Tasha Reid (née Yoon Mi-rae). The Texas-born Reid ended up in Korea as a child during her father’s Army posting, and she explored the country’s nascent hip-hop scene in underground clubs. Now, she says, “if I were to check the singles chart, at least 90 percent of [Korean] songs are R&B-influenced.”

yeah, this begins to tilt slightly in the direction of the music i'm imagining (which may not really exist). i wouldn't call it a terribly strong combination of high-octane vocals and self-assertion, and there's more than a little irony in the message, but i liked the song quite a bit. probably helps that they made it easy for me by singing the chorus in english.

people in America expect J-Pop stars to literally be anime characters?

no, but i think there's often an expectation that they will satisfy some of the same demands that hatsune miku plays to: cheerful and attractive girl-women in chastely sexy outfits, a romantic ideal of youth and "cuteness". same things that many/most american teenpop stars appeal to.

A friend of mine asked me once if I knew of any Japanese singers with really great voices and was kind of surprised to realize that I could hardly think of one. I can think of a lot of charming ones or a lot of very distinctive voices but "great" vocalists from Japan seem pretty sparse. Jun Togawa strikes me as the one diva-type personality whose voice can really command a song, but it's still got that typical Japanese high-pitched shrillness to it that puts it miles away from Tina Turner

america doesn't seem to have as strongly established a tradition of animated or cartoon teengirls as pop fantasy objects. like i said, i'm looking for alternatives to "passive teengirl-as-Japanese-fantasy-object stuff." using a cartoon character as an example draws attention to the "fantasy" aspect, but i'm not super-attached to the example. it just happened to be one that came up earlier this morning.

like, i might use winx club as an example of the way images of idealized femininity are marketed to tween girls in america, but they're not really comparable to hatsune miku because they seem to appeal exclusively to a young female audience.

contie, the basic assumption you have is that liking japanese anime/manga = liking j-pop. hatsune miku happens to be the one area where the two genres intersect. you're being sloppy with your reasoning here, contie, by using it as a stand-in for some weird notions you have about Japan or America's expectations about Japan.

you're being sloppy with your reasoning here, contie, by using it as a stand-in for some weird notions you have about Japan or America's expectations about Japan.

that may be, but like i said, it was a casually chosen example, based mostly on the fact that you'd just linked to it in another thread

fwiw, there aren't many examples of the iconic J/K-pop girl group or artist that i can think to reach for in speaking to an american audience. the audience for such stuff over here is still very much a niche market.

frogs: watching a live clip of jun togawa's "punk mushi no onna". is great! just what i was looking for. ironic in that she seems to be directly subverting the "cute, pretty, passive" ideal in the performance.

as for whatever "weird notions" may be in play, i won't try and pretend that my thinking here is totally coherent and without stain. nevertheless, my intent is not to critique J/K pop, but to expand my own understanding of it. and to the extent that i'm discussing stereotypes, i'm trying to get at the way that japanese pop culture is conventionally understood and marketed in america.

Insooni's father was African-American military personnel, like (recently eliminated) kpopstar Lee Michelle:

And rapper T(Tasha):

Whale from W and Whale grew up outside Korea, I believe. There are some 100% Korean idol group members who are US-influenced, though... the ones I'm thinking of at the moment are guys but I'm sure there are some girls are well... aside from the 2NE1 girls (CL/Bom/Minji), Taeyeon from SNSD can pull off RnB vocals:

woah, timely revive. was thinking of this thread last night, sorry that i'd let it die. anyway, a bunch of great recommendations from two weeks ago. lee michelle is amazing, and i fucking LOVE that superfly track. it's exactly the kind of singing i was hoping to find when starting his thread, and i'm a sucker for 70s metal. also, been hearing about shiina ringo & tokyo jihen for years on ILM, but had never checked her/them out. great stuff. thanks again to all who responded.

the basic assumption you have is that liking japanese anime/manga = liking j-pop.

again, not to mutilate a dead horse, but hatsune miku was an example chosen for specific reasons and wasn't meant as a general exemplar of all j/k-pop. i do think she's an instructive example when talking about the way japanese & korean pop culture is often marketed and (mis-)understood in the US, but i don't wanna get distracted by an argument about that.

also like that yuki song a hell of a lot, and it does help answer my initial question, cuz she's got a bit of that joan jett, punk style, "fuck you" rasp and swagger (lol, despite the fact that she's basically offering herself to the listener, check the video)